Fun at home

It happens to the best of us: you end up stuck in bed for a few days because of a terrible flue or a stomach bug, or because you sprained your ankle while trying to keep up with your fitness-crazy neighbor when jogging. If that happened fifty years ago you didn’t have that many choices. You could read a book, watch TV or play checkers against yourself for hours. Great fun. Since the advent of the Internet one of course has a plethora of options. You can still read books, but this time you would download them from the Internet. You can gossip on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, And of course you can play a vast variety of online games. If you have a smartphone (who doesn’t?) you have access to a huge number of game apps on Apple’s App Store and Android’s Play Store. Many of them are free, while some come with a small price tag. If you can think of a game one can play offline it’s very likely there’s already a mobile app version. Are you an avid chess player? You can play against the computer at the skill level that best suits you – or you can play against other players. The same goes for checkers and similar board games. And if you love playing cards you’ve hit the gold standard, because on your phone you can play against other players from across the world. Some of these apps even have chat faciliites, so you can make new friends who also like the same game. Your phone is also a great place to start with learning a new game. let’s say all your friends are avid poker players and you don’t have a clue what it’s all about. Start by downloading an app that explains the rules and tricks of the game. Next start playing friendly games against other beginners. Soon all those strange terms your friends have been mentioning casually will mean something to you – and before you know it you might be ready to become a professional player.